Friday, August 5, 2011

ALLS ESQUESOS (Cat) - WITH 14th C GARLIC CHEESE SAUCE RECIPE

OCat anys esquesos, Eng garlic cheese sauce, a variant of almodrote.* It contains the basic ingredients of almodrote, grated cheese and garlic, but calls for bread instead of egg yolks. No herbs are mentioned. This sauce is made with fowl in it. It is interesting to note that Sent Soví contains the first reference to "grated" cheese. Fadalat and Anon Andalus use cheese but do not call for grated cheese. [Anón/Grewe. 1982:CXXXXII:161-162:ftn 3; and Lord. Culinary. Mar 4, ‘08]

Preparation - If a sharp white cheese sauce is desired for roast chicken, capons, geese, hens or partridges make it in the following manner:

Place a pan under the roasting fowl to catch drippings. Mash white bread in mortar. Add garlic cloves and mash well. Add grated cheese and mash like alioli slowly adding ingredients and mashing without stopping. Add 1 c cold water or broth and mix. Add 2 cups hot water or broth and continue to mix. When the capons are done, remove them from the oven and carve them. Put the meat in the mortar with the cheese sauce. Pound this hard. Then take drippings for the capons and add them with 2 tbsp lard to the mixture. When well mixed pour the contents into individual bowls. If a potaje is not desired, make the sauce thicker by adding less water or broth to make the appearance like alioli or mayonnaise.

*See blog titled almodrote, published August 23, 2011 for Nola's recipe, blog titled capírotada published September 8, 2012 a Sent Soví version, blog titled cerdo lechon published February 11, 2012 for another Sent Soví version and esparcita published April 25, 2014 for Villena's.

TRANSALATION: There are many wives tales about making mayonnaise and alioil; my mother says that "in her times" they said that if you had your period it curdled. That would be because of changes in feelings (humors would be the medieval explanation) and nerves, this is because (I say, thinking of Americo Castro's idea), because of the Jewish-Muslim influence about not doing some things on "impure days"???

Also, alioli for foreigners (Anglo-Saxons, Nordics, including Italians and French plus Spaniards) can´t tolerate the the smell, thus I intrpret takng the extension cord outside for the food processor, cause it stinks!! But patience, it leads to addiction. Don´t tell me that alioil is not an addiction. . . I included potatoes with alioil all the time at my parties when living in Italy.

VERY adictive indeed! My husband was not confident in the beggining of its been really medieval, but he liked it so much that ever since everytime I make a new recipe he asks me if it is medieval too! I modernised a little the recipe pouring it like a sauce over some roast chicken.

About Me

After becoming an avid researcher in college, I continued to dig up historical information from the National Library of Spain in Madrid during the decades that I lived there. Suddenly, I realized I had a large notebook/dictionary of words I did not comprehend in Old Spanish from readings of medieval classics like the Archipreste of Hita, Don Quixote etc.
While organizing this information it occurred to me to present the word that pertained to medieval cookery and a medieval recipe that has something to do with the word. taken from medieval manuscripts.
Each week I prepare three words with pertinent recipes and after trying the recipe, I share it these with you so that you cannot only learn about the etymology of the word but you can try the recipe too!
Beside the Medieval Spanish Chef Blog, I am a Airbnb hostess. See pictures of the room I rent out at the airbnb website under "The Most Magical Views of Santiago" (Chile): http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/3184757